PSYC 100 1nd Edition Lecture 1 Outline of Current Lecture I. What Is Psychology A. Levels Of AnalysisII.Challenges Of Psychology III.Psychology Is A ScienceB. Biases And Fallacies IV.Scientific Thinking C.Definition Of Scientific Theory and HypothesisD.Scientific claims Current LectureI. What Is Psychology? Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes. It is the study of the mind, brain, and behavior. There are five levels of analysis in psychology: molecular, neurological, mental, behavioral, and social. In psychology, the brain refers to the biological entity. The mind refers to the mental level. It is the brain that causes the mind. II. Challenges Of Psychology In psychology, almost all actions are multiply determined. Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other, meaning that actions can correlate together. People have individual differences and people can influence each other, which is known as reciprocal determinism. Behavior is shaped by culture. III. Psychology Is A Science Science meaning not a body of knowledge, but an approach to evidence. Science deals with recognizing that we might be wrong in our findings. Knowledge is tentative and always open to revision. The initial scientific conclusions are often wrong or off-base. In science, continual revision is a key process. There are many biases to psychology. The first one is native realism, which is where we think we see the world exactly as it is. An example of this would be optical illusions. Another bias is confirmation bias in which we seek out and pay attention to information that confirms our beliefs. The third bias is known as belief perseverance where people stick to their beliefs in the face of contradictory information. A way we can control these biases is through science. When one uses their emotions rather than evidence as the guide, These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.they are following the emotional reasoning fallacy. The bandwagon fallacy is when a person believes something to be true because lots of people believe it. It is creating this “bandwagon” effect. The third fallacy, the not me fallacy, is when people think other people may have biases, but “not me.” IV. Scientific Thinking A scientific theory is an explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world. The theory can never be proven true; it is never considered a fact. A testable prediction derived from a scientific theory is a hypothesis. One must learn how to think critically, which is known as scientific skepticism. In scientific thinking, one must rule out the rival hypotheses. Correlationdoes not equate causation. Falsifiability is when something could happen to prove the claim wrong. Replicability is if one scientist could do something but everyone else cannot. In all cases, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This deals with Occam’s Razor (also known as the Principle of Parsimony). This states that when deciding what to do, go with the idea with the simplest explanation that can explain the evidence. This can otherwise be known as the KISSPrinciple (Keep It Simple Stupid). Within psychology, there are three scientific claims. The first is that the evidence is scientific, meaning that the information is gained from testing hypotheses. The second claim is that the evidence is metaphysical, which states that science cannot test the evidence. The third is pseudoscience in which claims seem scientific but are not. Pseudoscience lacks safeguards against confirmation bias and also exaggerates